


Maybe he had made her happy now.

by dilangley



Series: Bruce and Diana in DCEU [4]
Category: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, DC Cinematic Universe, Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: Alfred has one face of snark, Diana and Bruce attend a literary themed gala, F/M, Friendship with future potential, Steve Trevor and Diana are soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-10 15:54:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11129988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dilangley/pseuds/dilangley
Summary: Bruce finds he is jealous of the story he doesn't know and a man he has never met.[oneshot; stands alone]





	Maybe he had made her happy now.

Bruce examined a bruise along his left shoulder, turning his body closer to the mirror. His recent company -- a burly group of fisherman with assorted gaffs and concealed carry permits -- had not taken kindly to his insistent presence at their docks. He understood their perspective; an onlooker asking questions and not doing any work hardly garnered respect. 

Apparently the second day had been the breaking point for civility. He had defended himself, but his bruised, bloodied knuckles and smarting ribs wished he had taken a harder offensive line.

Bruce was starting to worry Arthur Curry was not on the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland, and he was starting to tire of the smell of fish. Another six a.m. trek to the docks sounded very unpleasant.

He changed from the white towel slung around his hips to dark, warm clothing, canvas pants and cheap cottons that he never would have worn in his regular existence. He layered a fluffy jacket over the ensemble and pulled on a hat.

Then he heard his phone vibrate on the table, two insistent tones. A text from Alfred confirming his next flight -- he would be returning to Gotham for a Wayne Industries benefit this afternoon -- and an email from Diana. She snapped into his mind as clearly as if she stood in front of him: dark, expressive eyes; strong, sculpted features; and statuesque figure. Since meeting her, he had been unable to think of any other woman. 

Ordinarily he loved his dalliances. Even in his darkest times, he had been able to put on a tuxedo, smile at a beautiful woman, and win himself a few hours of distraction. Not now.

Now he was a man obsessed with protecting a woman from discovery, a man hovered over his keyboard hacking his way into LuthorCorp and trying to determine how Lex got a photograph of Diana Prince in World War I. He had discovered Lex had only ever gotten his hands on a digital copy and had then deleted other traces of it. He had never had the original.

Now Bruce was a man who spent hours researching until he found a tiny village in Belgium with a local legend. In Veld, the population had been decimated by German troops and then gassed, wiped out by a new chemical agent. Yet the local historians told a tongue-in-cheek story of the near salvation of the village. Apparently a “wonder woman” clad in the colors of America had battled her way across No Man’s Land and freed the village the night before it was bombed. For a few glorious hours, the citizens of Veld had been free.

“It was a fairy tale, of course,” the historians reminded him. They must have seen the glint of interest in his eyes. “A comforting story to make relatives believe their loved ones did not suffer as badly as they did.”

But Bruce knew better, and he spent days in Veld, combed through old letters and documents until he found out that In Flanders Field Museum had boxes of uncategorized, uncorroborated materials from World War I. He set up a generous annual donation to the museum's Artist in Residence program and bought himself access to these boxes. 

He had never been a history buff, but he knew his battles and military strategies. Yet somehow the people in those stories had never been real to him until he met Diana, until he looked at her and realized her same eyes had watched women in high collars and corsets, that her same hands had lifted him and a soldier on Flanders Field out of rubble. 

As he pulled letters out of the box, faded, yellowing, falling apart, his heart convulsed in his chest. These pieces of history were literally forgotten. How much else had been lost? How much of humanity would never be known? 

The photograph fell out of a large, over-stamped envelope, tucked in with a letter proclaiming bafflement over what it could be. Bruce had admired it many times before, observed the proud lift of her chin, the grim conviction written on the faces of her comrades. It was more incredible in person than it could ever be digitally.

Putting it in the mail never even crossed his mind. He had used Wayne Industries couriers to carry it directly to Diana at the Louvre. She must have received it.

He tapped in his passcode on his phone and pulled up the email. If he had been so inclined, he might have acknowledged that the feeling in his stomach like buzzing dragonflies pinging against his intestines was anticipation.

Over dinner, over coffee, over Alfred’s excellent croissants, he had made Diana smile before. The smile would appear slowly, starting at the center of the mouth and losing momentum by the time it reached the corners. It had never had enough power to part the lips, to make her open-mouthed and unguarded. He had made her smile, but he had never made her happy.

Maybe he had made her happy now.

He clicked on the subject “Photograph,” and the brevity of its contents startled him.

_Thank you for bringing him back to me._

Bruce read the words once, twice, thrice. He waited a moment for his own reaction, but it did not come. Instead a curious numbness replaced the dragonflies, a silence of his own thoughts and feelings.

He clicked the phone back to black and headed for the docks. He had work to do.

  


\--------------------

  


Arthur Curry did not turn up, and Bruce Wayne frowned as he boarded his private jet for Gotham. He got himself a glass of unsweetened iced tea from the beverage cart and settled into a seat. His thoughts had not developed greater solidity, but he pulled up his digital copy of the photograph to observe it through new eyes.

Of course the man in the center was the man of whom she spoke. Bruce’s deductive skills may have been legendary, but too many times, he had missed what was right in front of him. Diana and the other man wore matching expressions, straight line mouths and furrowed brows, warriors of yesteryear. 

But the man stood at an angle. Bruce Wayne would have bet the better part of his fortune that the war front was to Diana’s right and that the man stood as a protective wall between her and it. The gesture would have been silly if articulated -- Diana likely fought them all across the battlefield, the hero of her own story -- but perhaps on an instinctive level, this man had wished to stand between chaos and his girl. He did not look at her, but Bruce knew this soldier’s every awareness had been of the woman beside him, not the photographer.

_Thank you for bringing him back to me._

His and Diana’s flirtations played through his mind as they had many times before, but this time, like the photograph, he saw them through a new lens. They glowed less rosy now, like lightbulbs that had been broken and carefully glued back together. The light still shone through, but its flaws were evident, little slivers of imperfection all throughout. Again he saw that smile in his mind, the slow, tight smile that didn’t reach the corners of her mouth, that didn’t light the dark center of her eyes.

He laid his head back. He might as well get some sleep. This gala had already exhausted him, and it had not even begun yet.

  


\------------------

  


Halfway through a glass of ginger ale masquerading as scotch, Bruce seemed to be convincing people he was having fun. Sometimes he liked to toy with questions of identity. Was he Batman, pretending to be billionaire Bruce Wayne, or was he billionaire Bruce Wayne, pretending to be Batman? Certainly he could not truly be both of them. They had nothing in common.

Bruce was dressed in a nouveau riche tuxedo, all Jay Gatsby in tails, but around him, he had Scarlett O’Hara and Hester Prynne vying for his attention.

“Bruce, darling, it has been years… No, Sheila, I’m not exaggerating… years since you got together a group to go to the theatre in Chicago. Those used to be the most wonderful outings.” Vicki smiled as she spoke, clearly addressing the group around them more than him. He remembered those outings. On several of them, he had taken Vicki to bed early in the evening and then spent the later part chasing down crime bosses on the South Side. He glanced down at the scarlet A emblazoned on her her chest.

“We’ll go again soon.” He took a sip of his drink, raised an eyebrow in what he knew was a patented playboy expression. Vicki flushed. He wasn’t the only one who remembered those trips.

“This party is wonderful.” The other woman, Sheila presumably, stepped into his orbit, her hoop skirt bouncing against his leg. “I love the literary theme. Why did you choose this?”

A small ache of irritation pinged the side of his temple. He opened his mouth to explain but heard the sweet richness of another voice instead.

“Perhaps because this gala benefits the Gotham Public Library.” Her presence changed the gravity around him, pulled him with such magnetism that it was sweet relief to turn and face her, even though he had not been expecting her. Diana wore a honey-yellow dress with a bright red wrap, her hair in an updo that swept expertly in two different directions. She glided to his side, stilettos clicking and making him have to tilt his head up to look at her, and laid her hand in the crook of his arm.

“It did make a literary theme make sense,” he replied coolly, his sarcasm matching the even keel of hers. “I’m pleased to see you made it, Miss Prince.”

“I would not decline an invitation with a handwritten note.” Her eyes twinkled, and if he had been a lesser man, he would have blushed, remembering how he had surreptitiously snagged an invitation, scribbled “This might be another way to save the world” on the back, and sent it off to her office in Paris. 

“What can I say? I missed when your business kept you in Gotham.” He stayed light, frothy, acutely aware that two pairs of jealous eyes watched their interactions. She had not missed that either.

“I can see you’re not going to introduce me.” She removed her hand from his elbow, and he missed its weight. “I’m Diana Prince.”

He watched her speak with Vicki and Sheila, shaking hands, smiling. The acidic looks vanished from the other faces. Diana’s courtesy had no tinge of competition: whether that was because she had no natural inclination to best other women or because she knew she already stood victorious, Bruce didn’t know. He only knew that when the other women drifted away, all three looked happy.

He slipped an arm around her, fingertips hovering at her waist, and leaned in to whisper as they started in motion. 

“I didn’t find Curry. I know he’s up there somewhere, but no one’s talking.”

She nodded. “The speedster you seek has been seen in Central City, Ohio. A journalist tracks sightings on a conspiracy blog, but most people do not really believe that these flashes of red mean anything.”

“I’ll go for him next then.” Bruce set his glass down on a passing tray. Diana flashed an apologetic smile the waiter’s direction and said thanks before turning her attention back to the conversation. 

“I would like to go with you. If the journalist’s work is accurate, she has clocked him at speeds beyond Mach 4.” Under the polite exterior of her words, he felt the undercurrent of concern.

“I’m just going to talk to him, Diana.” 

“Nothing seems to be that simple these days,” she replied simply. “I’m coming.”

“I’d like that.” And he would. They could go together, partners in this mission. The sound of it conjured up images in his mind, flashes of shared smiles, of strong legs as she leapt tall buildings in a single bound, of triumph over evil. Optimism tried to burrow its way into his bones, ignoring the hissing pessimism that already lived there.

“Now, Mr. Gatsby, you didn’t ask me who I am dressed as.” Her lips curved beautifully in that smirk. 

The switch between Diana, razor-sharp and focused, and Miss Prince, sophisticated socialite, was so seamless that Bruce wondered which one she was pretending to be. Maybe she didn’t pretend. Maybe she was actually both.

He tried not to be envious.

“Give me a moment.” He stepped back, took her hand and held her out in front of him. He drew his eyes from top to bottom, observing, thinking.

“You’re not going to guess it.” Somehow he forgot why he was looking at her. He lost purpose in the aesthetics of the woman in front of him. Her beauty shimmered as potential energy, all promise of strength and power, and he had seen that in her from the first instant she stole from him. He enjoyed a few extra seconds of having an excuse to stare and then shook his head.

“I don’t know. Who are you?”

She lifted the edges of the red wrap, gave it a little flap against the yellow dress. “A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh.”

Bruce Wayne burst into laughter. He barely recognized the sound of his own uninhibited amusement. 

  


\-----------------

  


The gala ended quietly, and he invited her home with him. It made sense. They had worked together in his control room before, and they had shared the kitchen table for business meals. Yet this time something different hovered in the air between them, his words extended not like an offer but a request. She accepted, and Bruce ignored Alfred’s suggestively raised eyebrows as he arrived home and went to his bedroom to change. He heard the click of the front door as Alfred made his way back to his cottage for the night.

When Bruce reemerged, Diana had taken advantage of his hospitality. She sat on one of the lounge chairs, overlooking the starry sky and swirling gray-green lake, with a glass of water in her hand. Her legs were folded beneath her, comfy clothes draped on her body, and her pensive expression did not flicker when he entered. He admired her openness, her disinterest in artifice. If she was thoughtful, she would let him see it. 

He walked to the kitchen, filled himself a glass, and took the seat beside her. 

“Bruce.” She turned to him now. Her dark eyes were twin wells; in their depths, he saw emotion stirring. “I hope you got my email, my thanks. I know it took you time to track down the photograph, and I’m so grateful.”

“You’re welcome,” he replied thickly, his tongue heavy.

“I did not realize how different it would be to have the original again.” She looked back out at the water. He watched her throat bobble as she swallowed, imagined her speaking as a bucket dipping down into the well of emotion, pulling it up to the surface on scratchy ropes and creaking pulleys. “For so long, it has felt more like a dream than a memory. I had forgotten his voice, and now I can hear it once more, just by touching that yellowed paper. It is a gift I cannot repay.”

He scratched the side of his face, told himself no, but then spoke anyway. “I spent a lot of time tracking it down for a beautiful woman who has been a good friend to me, and it turned out to be a part of her love story…”

“What do you mean?” He could feel her startle beside him, and he could imagine the head tilt in surprise without looking away from the view outside the window.

“I guess I’m a little jealous.” He let the words fall between them and waited for her reply. He tried to craft her response from his knowledge of her: a snatch of her chuckles, a dash of affectionate condescension towards boys and their pettiness, a smile that she never escaped collected control. 

Instead he felt her fingers find his, curl around his hand. “I miss him every day. I have been so alone I forgot that it was lonely. When Superman flew across the sky and Batman plowed through the night, I judged them, remembered that feeling of hope and hubris, the belief that one being could stop war and suffering. When I came to Man’s world, I had that same feeling.”

He turned his face to her now, let himself meet her eyes. “Even when I fought beside them, I judged them. I stood apart from them. I was a warrior, but this was not my war. They were not my team. My team and my war were 100 years ago.”

Bruce’s lungs expanded painfully; he had not known he was holding his breath.

“But then Bruce Wayne paid for a funeral to say goodbye to the enemy who always should have been his friend, and he asked me to stand with him. I agreed, and I got to know him. An orphan, parents murdered on the streets, and yet not on a path of vengeance. Yes, it was neither Superman nor Batman who made me part of a team again, though the name Wonder Woman stands well with them.”

“It was Bruce Wayne who made me Diana of Themyscira again, and I hope he will always know what that has meant to me.”

He breathed again, slow and heavy, and barely kept himself from reaching out to touch her face, to stroke back a lock of hair. She knew. She, too, lived in parts of herself, separate strands of the same powerful rope: Diana of Themyscira, Wonder Woman, Diana Prince.

He did not move their hands from the space between them. He dared not lose this instant where the ache in his chest was from something good, rather than pain.

“Bruce and Diana make a good team,” he observed quietly.

“Yes.”

“I’m glad I was able to find your photograph. I’m glad it brought him back to you.”

Bruce was not surprised to find that he meant the words. She smiled at him, lips together, eyes warm. He squeezed her hand and did not worry that the smile did not open. 

There was time enough for that.


End file.
